Allegory of Painting

Description This young woman with her palette and brushes is not seriously engaged in painting. Contemplating her reflection in a mirror held by a winged cupid, she is a personification of the self-conscious beauty that was then the goal of art. A mask attached to her headdress with a golden chain symbolizes the potentially misleading view of reality that art can convey even when appearing to imitate nature. Corvi's buoyant, cheerful forms are close to those of French rococo art of the period. For more information on this painting, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 426, pp. 536-537.

Exhibitions

• Going for Baroque. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1995-1996.

Provenance Royal Collections, Turin, 1764, by commission; Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 526, by A. R. Mengs]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902